Love Me Like You
by Reid Phantom
Summary: "I always thought I might be bad/Now I'm worried it's true, 'cause/I think you're all good/And I'm nothing like you!" ((Part 2 of Kayiv))


Shiro stretched as he stepped into the common room of the castle of lions, or at least the room that had become such since the human paladins had come to reside there. He smiled as he took in his relaxing team. Pidge was sitting on one half of the round couch, doing something on her computer with Hunk and Coran peeking over her shoulders. Allura and Lance were sitting on the other side. Allura was talking to her - mice? Shiro was pretty sure that's what she called them and they did look a bit like the rodent's Shiro knew, but they were also much more intelligent than their earthling counterparts - while ignoring Lance's cheesy jokes.

The black paladin's smile fell away as he realized someone was missing.

"Where's Keith?"

"Hiding, as usual," Lance snorted. He tried to come off as carefree, but Shiro knew he was worried.

They all were.

After reuniting a month prior from their trip through the unstable wormhole, it was quickly made clear that Keith was the most shaken up by the separation. It was understandable, really. While most of the paladins had been able to reunite after a day or two, it had taken Allura over a week to track down Red because of all the damage she took from both the fight with Zarkon and the crash landing.

Shiro knew it was hard for the second youngest paladin to be alone. Mostly because it was something he was far too familiar with. Unlike Pidge's preference for privacy, Keith's asocialty came from a lack of understanding. Keith had been orphaned at an age that left him with only the vaguest of memories of his mother who had apparently died in some sort of plane crash. After that, he'd been shuffled around from one foster home to another until he had been dumped into the Garrison.

When Shiro had become Keith's Alumni Mentor during the boy's freshman year, he quickly learned that Keith just didn't understand people. And his upbringing hadn't helped, either, as it meant he never had a stable environment to help him gain that understanding.

Shiro had tried his best to help, but he had barely known Keith for a year before he was shipped off to Kerberos. Then when he had returned, while Keith may have been sixteen, he may as well have been that fourteen year old boy that had stared at Shiro blankly before telling him to get lost and snapping his door closed in Shiro's face. Not to Shiro, of course. He had been wary, yet friendly when they had reunited. To everyone else though, Shiro could see that Keith's walls were as strong as ever, maybe even stronger.

And now what good Team Voltron had done for him could be crumbling away.

 _No_! Shiro clenched his fists. _Keith will be fine. He just needs to remember that his team - his friends - his family is there for him. He had his space, now we need to talk._

"Do any of you know where he is?" Shiro asked the group.

"He's not training. Hunk and I have been checking."

Hunk nodded from behind Pidge at her words.

"No, I just came from there," Shiro agreed.

"Don't ask me how I know this, but he definitely hasn't been to his room."

Shiro opened his mouth, then closed it. He brought a hand up to rub his temples. "We _will_ talk about this later."

"I didn't do anything and you can't prove that I did!"

"Any other ideas or should I get straight to dealing with Lance?"

"Please do," Pidge snickered.

"Oh!" Allura said, gaining the group's attention. She was looking down at her mice, but quickly looked up at Shiro. "He was heading down to the lower levels."

"Was he going to visit Red?" Shiro asked.

"No, the _lower_ levels. Beneath the hangers."

"There are levels _lower_ than the hangers?" Hunk groaned. The hangers were obnoxiously far in his opinion. How could there be _more_?

"Yes, though we mostly just use it for storage. It's a good hiding spot, all things considered. There aren't many places to hide, but we wouldn't have a reason to be looking there in the first place. Yes, quite strategic," Coran said, nodding.

"Great, if there's nowhere for him to hide, then it won't take us long to find him," Lance said, hopping up and heading out the door. Pidge and Hunk quickly followed.

"Wait -"

"Come, Shiro. We have to show Keith that we are here for him! This kind of strife between paladins could prevent you from working together and forming Voltron!"

"But -"

Allura and Coran were gone.

Shiro sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Having all of them throwing themselves at Keith was not what he needed right now.

He could work with this though. He'd let the others be there, show Keith that they had his back, then he'd take the red paladin somewhere private so they could have a real talk.

* * *

"Where now?" Lance asked as the group reached the spot the mice had last seen Keith.

"Sh, do you guys here that?" Pidge asked.

The group went silent. Shiro frowned and was about to ask Pidge what she meant when he heard it. It was soft and muffled, barely audible.

"What is that?"

"I think it's coming from this direction," Allura said, pointing down a set of stairs.

The group stayed quiet as they went down flight after flight of stairs. Finally arriving at the bottom, Allura pushed through a doorway and the sound finally became recognizable.

"Is that music?" Hunk asked, glancing around.

"It kind of sounds like a piano."

"More like a xiaziovax," Allura corrected with a sigh and smile.

"A what-now?" Lance asked.

"Xiaziovax. It's a beautiful instrument crafted by… Well, I can't remember exactly at which planet it started out, but by our time it had spread quite far throughout the universe. It's long, like this and it has all these long, little buttons that when you hit them the cause little hammers to strike a charged wire. The resulting electrical burst is what makes the sound."

"So… Electric keyboard, emphasis on the electric?"

The Altean's looked at the humans, confused.

"Never mind," Shiro sighed. "Why is the Shia-thing making noise?"

"Hm… We did have one or two that could be set to play automatically. Perhaps it got jostled at some point and turned on."

"We should find it and turn it off. We wouldn't want something to happen to it and the noise might make it harder to track down Keith," Allura suggested.

"Quite. And perhaps I'll bring it with me. I could put on a performance and give you humans a taste of Altean high culture. I believe we keep the musical instruments… This way!"

As Coran set off, Allura turned to the humans with a terrified expression. "Do not allow him to play the xiaziovax!" she hissed before forcing on a smile and following after him.

"Do we want to know?" Hunk asked.

"I don't think we do. Come on," Pidge chuckled.

The music continued on as they walked, but Shiro frowned as the simple tunes were replaced by a more lyrical song.

"The xiaziovax should be right through that-"

" _If I could begin to be/Half of what you think of me/I could do about anything/I could even learn how to love_."

"Is that…" Lance muttered, a smile slipping into his face.

" _When I see the way you act/Wondering if I'm coming back/I could do about anything/I could even learn how to love like you_."

"It is," he chuckled.

"I didn't know Keith could sing," Allura mused.

Neither did Shiro.

" _Love like you_."

"Oh this is too good! Grumpy Cat Keith sneaks off to play _music_! Do you think he wrote that himself? It doesn't sound familiar. Pidge, please tell me you have a camera!"

"No," Shiro growled when Pidge patted her pockets.

" _Love like you_."

"We're leaving, now!" Seaking him out when he obviously wanted to be alone was one thing, but this was a horrible invasion of privacy.

"What?" Lance whined.

"Shiro -" Allura started.

"We'll talk to him later. He wouldn't even listen if we interrupted him now." In the background, Shiro heard the music pick up hard and fast as the musical bridge ended. "Now let's-"

" _I always thought I might be bad/Now I'm worried it's true, 'cause/I think you're all good/And I'm nothing like you_!"

The team froze. That line had been snarled as much as sung.

" _Look at you go, I just envy you/I wish that I knew/What makes you think I'm so special_."

 _Keith_ , Shiro thought, his heart clenching up as anger faded to sadness for the last line. The group almost thought the song was over, but the music continued on slowly after a second.

" _If I could begin to do/Something that does right by you/I would do about anything/I would even learn how to love._

 _"I always fear the way you'd look/Shaken by this form I took/But I could do about anything/I could even learn how to love like you._

 _"Love me like you_."

Silence fell. The group felt muted by the emotion that had floated out from behind the door they stood in front of.

Shiro swallowed. He and Keith needed to talk. Now.

The black paladin sent the others a look and waved his hand, hoping the others would take the hint and leave. He turned to the door and hesitated. Finally he pushed it open and said, "Keith-"

The boy sitting at the piano-like instrument spun around, but instead of seeing black hair and violet eyes, Shiro saw violet hair and bright, pupil-less, iris-less, yellow eyes.

* * *

 **Apparently I tripped while walking into the Voltron fandom and landed in the Galra!Keith garbage bin because not even a day after watching the series I started working on ideas for the theory.**

 **The song "Love Like You" is from Steven Universe and this was based on the version performed by Aivi Surasshu, Edwin Rhodes, and Thu Tran at AOD 2016.**


End file.
